The Latest News

Following a successful first appearance in 2014, the International Women’s Collaborative Brew Day returned on International Women’s Day, Sunday 8th March 2015 with over 80 participants from 11 countries. All the female brewers who joined this year brewed Unite Red Ale (4.6% ABV), the recipe of which was formulated by event Founder and Brewster Sophie de Ronde of Muntons Malt. Co-ordination of all of the brewers and teams was again headed by Denise Ratfield of Pink Boots Society.
Eleven countries were involved, with brewsters in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Italy, Mexico, New Zealan.. Read more

We are proud to launch a new beer to support Yorkshire County cricketer Richard Pyrah’s benefit year. Richard is an Ossett born lad who commenced his career at Ossett Cricket Club and has since proved an invaluable asset to Yorkshire in both Twenty20 ad County matches!
The official launch of 'Pyrah' will be held at Ossett Cricket Club on Thursday 9th April from 7pm. We would love you to join the Ossett Brewery team and Richard for a pint or two of 'Pyrah' to celebrate.
‘Pyrah’ is and easy drinking golden ale with moderate bitterness and d.. Read more

In this year’s budget the chancellor announced an unprecedented third consecutive cut in duty. Cutting beer duty supports one of Britain’s major manufacturing industries and gives increased confidence to small brewers to invest in equipment, staff and pubs. As usual we will adjust our list price to reflect the cut in duty on all our draught brands.
Following our annual review of costs in January we decided not to increase our prices as usual in February. With the brewery holding our prices and the chancellors cut in duty our beers will actually be lower cost than last year. Now that&rsquo.. Read more

The Old Peacock is very excited to announce the following events:
An Evening with Leeds United Legend, Norman Hunter on Wednesday 22nd April from 7.30PM
& An Evening with Leeds United Legend, Duncan McKenzie on Wednesday 1st July from 7.30PM

The second International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day is taking place on Sunday 8th March. Brewster’s from all around the world will be brewing the same beer on the same day as a celebration of International Women’s day and a chance to unite together for charity.
This year our Brewster, Lisa Handforth, is inviting all women to come along to an open brew day at the Riverhead, Marsden on Sunday 8th March. Feel free to pop in anytime from 10am-5pm to join in or even just to say hello! All we ask is that if you do wish to help brewing then please wear sensible footwear.
The beer .. Read more

Each year Wakefield, the centre of the Rhubarb Triangle, celebrates the wonderful vegetable that is Rhubarb with a three day festival. This year the festival took place Friday 20th- Sunday 22nd February. Now in its ninth year, the Rhubarb Festival has attracted more than 125,000 visitors from across the country.
As usual Fernandes Brewery brewed a special beer for the event – this year brewer Steve Hutchinson created Rhubarb and Custard; a 4% golden rhubarb beer made with new season forced rhubarb grown at Oldroyd’s Farm in Rothwell.
Steve said: “The custard part is actually .. Read more

BOOK LAUNCH at The Old Peacock | Saturday 21st February | From 7.00pm
The Only Place For us: An A-Z History of Elland Road presented by author and Leeds UTD fan Jon Howe.
At 7.30pm, there will be a special football themed quiz hosted by Ex Leeds UTD physio, Alan Sutton. Followed by a talk at 8.30pm, by Ex Leeds UTD Chairman, Bill Fotherby (with a short Q&A session).
"The Only Place For Us pulls together the never-before-told history of the developing stadium and its changing local environment, revealing the background stories behind Elland Road's most famous feature.. Read more

As usual at the start of a new year, we have reviewed our costs and margins. We are very pleased to announce we will not be increasing our prices in February as in previous years. Although many brewers have announced price increases we feel that the current reductions in fuel costs will allow us to hold prices for the time being. That’s worth raising a glass to!
We’re also hopeful that the chancellor will not increase duty in the pre-election budget on Wednesday18th March. Any change in duty, whether up or down, will be fully reflected in our list price following the budget.

From late January our flagship beer, Silver King, will be available on a national basis for the first time. Our partnership with Carlsberg UK means that Silver King will be available as part of Carlsbergs Tapster range of cask ales from around 20 quality British brewers. We are excited that free trade pubs and clubs from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands will be able to stock Silver King on a permanent basis. Those members of the team that visit customers to support our brands are gearing up to spend a lot more time in their cars!
Mike Inman, MD of Ossett Brewery says ‘We have a strong relatio.. Read more

We are delighted that our best selling beer, Yorkshire Blonde, is now available to all Enterprise Inns, across the North and Midlands. From the beginning of December Enterprise Inns outlets can order both Yorkshire Blonde and Silver King from Enterprise to be delivered on their regular Heineken delivery. Permanent pumpclips can be ordered via Enterprise telesales or the online ordering system. Enterprise leasees wanting to stock our brands should contact the brewery sales team on 01924 237160 to request POS or callage from one of our reps.
All our other beers are available to Enterprise out.. Read more

After the outstanding success of The Rat & Ratchet been named the Best Cask Beer Pub in the UK at the Great British Pub Awards 2014, Ossett Brewery held a celebratory event to mark this honour on Sunday 16th November 2014.
Richard Prest and Lisa Dunbar, Managers of the Rat, dressed themselves up for a glamourous night at The British Pub Awards, at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane. Richard and Lisa were joined by a wide variety of other publicans from across the country, with a total of 17 awards been announced at the ceremony.
The Rat & Ratchet beers all have humorous and creative ale t.. Read more

Kill For A Seat Comedy and The Hop Wakefield presents...
Rob Rouse, Danny Ward and Ray Bradshaw, providing us all with a night of laugh out loud entertainment!
On Thursday 11th December 2014
Tickets are £8
Book your tickets now: http://m.seetickets.com/event/kill-for-a-seat-comedy/the-hop/831818

Do you fancy draught Beer At Home For Christmas?
Our 5 litre mini-casks are always popular for Christmas and New Year parties. We will be selling at from the Ossett Brewery shop from mid December until they run out! The ‘shop’ is open from 8.30am to 4.30pm Monday to Friday. These casks contain proper cask ale and therefore will need time to settle and the container should not be moved until it is empty. Once opened the beer is best consumed in three days.
Yorkshire Blonde 3.9% -£17.57
Silver King 4.3% .. Read more

The Old Vic on Manor Road, Ossett is once again having a weekend featuring beers from all of the Breweries in the Wakefield District. From teatime on Thursday 20th November to Sunday 23rd November all 10 local breweries will be represented. Many of the Brewers will be present on the Thursday evening from 7pm if you fancy having a chat. For further details see the poster below or call the pub direct on 01924 273516

Once again the Ossett Brewery team ventured to the annual Wakefield CAMRA beer festival. This year the festival featured ‘Celtic Fringe’ beers along with local brewers and real ciders. All the beer was on top form and included beer from all four of our microbreweries.
Our stand out beer of the festival was Fernandes Black Voodoo. June Bradbury from Wakefield CAMRA joined Steve at Fernandes to brew our favourite chocolate orange stout, and to make it even more unique the voodoo heading for the festival was racked into a wooden cask.
The beer went down a treat and we are very happy.. Read more

Our micro-breweries picked up a couple of awards at the Steel City beer festival at Kelham Island:
GOLD award in BITTER category: Fernandes Brewery – Half Nelson
GOLD award in BEST BITTER category: Rat Brewery – Ratweiller
Half Nelson also won SILVER and Ratweiller bronze in the OVERALL BEER of the FESTIVAL competition. Our congratulations to all the brewers involved.

Cask Matters is a great new website, hosted by Cask-Marque, providing all sorts of information on cask beer.
The site provide news, resources and insight for licensees, brewers and cask ale drinkers. We particularly recommend the sections on daily and weekly checklists for your cask cellar and tips on holding a beer festival. You can search throughout the site by subject or source, so whether it’s the latest Beer Report from SIBA or the full range of beer training courses available for bar staff, you’ll find it on Cask Matters!
Find a link to the Cask Matters on ou.. Read more

Having won the regional heat of the Great British Pub Awards our pub the Rat & Ratchet went through to the National Final in the Best Cask Beer Pub category.
Rat & Ratchet Manager Richard Prest had entered the pub into the competition and went to London to attend the finals at The Park Lane Hilton. Richard and partner Lisa Dunbar were ecstatic to collect the overall award for Best Cask Beer Pub in the UK. A well deserved award for the Rat, for Richard and his team and also for Huddersfield - a contender for best cask beer town in Britain?

The annual Society of Independent Brewers awards for the North East region were held at the York Beer Festival in September. Over 300 beers were judged by 70+ judges in a number of categories. We were chuffed to walk away with 3 awards from the 5 beers we entered:
Silver King won Bronze in the Best Bitter category.
King Rat won Bronze in the Strong Bitter category.
Yorkshire Blonde Premium won Silver in the Golden Bottled Beer category.
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We have bowed to customer demand and bottled a small batch of our flagship IPA in 330ml bottles. Rat Against The Machine is an intensely hopped American style IPA that is bottled conditioned. A powerful 7% pale and bitter beer with massive citrus hop aroma derived from US Chinook & Citra hops. We’re really happy with the powerful and complex taste and we’d love to know what you think. The bottles are available from the Brewery Shop, the Rat & Ratchet pub in Huddersfield and many specialist beer retailers.

The annual Open Day on Saturday 30th August raised a grand total of £8,515.19 for Forget Me Not Children's Hospice. Thanks to all the volunteers, companies and customers that made the day such a success.
Special thanks to all the people and companies that have supported the Open Day:
A Plant Hire (Healey, Ossett), Bar Hire Solutions, Kerry Foods, Blacker Hall Farm Shop, Yorkshire Pies, Leach Catering, All the bands, New Inn (Walton), Wood Richardson Print (York), Wakefield Express, Ossett Pubco Managers for selling raffle tickets and all the brewery staff & volunteers.
The Gr.. Read more

Thurs 25th-Sun 28th September.
Featuring a unique range of 12 beers made with fresh green hops from this years harvest + a range of real ciders. On Thursday evening Matt Hall of Yorkshire Hops will speak about hops in general and particularly growing hops in Yorkshire.

Friday 15th August see's the re-opening of the historic restaurant at the Kings Arms, Heath, Wakefield. Refurbished and re-named after the rare gas lighting that gives the restaurant in unique atmosphere. The A la Carte menu will focus on fresh, seasonal & local produce.
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For 18 years the International Beer Challenge has rewarded and promoted excellent beers. The whole rainbow of beer complexity enters the IBC, with entries received from no fewer than 30 countries.
We are delighted that our bottled Yorkshire Blonde has won a bronze medal in the Golden Ales 4.1-5% category. Look out for the IBC Medal Logo appearing on bottles of Yorkshire Blonde in future.

Our on going relationship with Wakefield Golf Club has been strengthened with our two year sponsorship of their Scratch Team. The picture below shows the team just before they got stuck into the Yorkshire Blonde in the 19th.